SEOUL--Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) on Wednesday promoted the son of the company's chairman to the position of vice chairman, a move that puts Jay Y. Lee a step closer to eventually heading one of the world's largest makers of consumer electronics.

Mr. Lee, 44 years old, was formerly president and chief operating officer of Samsung, which is still controlled by its founding family and is South Korea's biggest company by market capitalization. Samsung has no plans to fill the vacant chief operating officer position and Mr. Lee's responsibilities will largely remain the same, even though he will have greater say in key strategic directions.

Mr. Lee is seen as the international face of Samsung, often brokering deals with companies like Apple Inc.
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Samsung said Mr. Lee has built strong relationships with global business leaders through strategic alliances and was "instrumental" in forging partnerships with key customers such as Sony Corp.
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Apple and Hewlett-Packard Co.
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The promotion will further raise the profile of Mr. Lee, whose family receives intense attention in South Korea because it is the country's wealthiest. Though he is well-known within the global technology industry and even attended the funeral of Apple's late founder, Steve Jobs, he has kept a low profile in South Korea in deference to his father, Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Mr. Lee's ascendancy comes at a time when South Korea's family-controlled conglomerates have come under increasing criticism from politicians for their dominance of the economy.

Over the past three years, Samsung has grown from providing chips and displays to western rivals like Apple and H-P to a formidable competitor in the fast-growing smartphone and tablet markets. It is the world's biggest maker of chips, liquid crystal displays, smartphones and televisions. In the third quarter, it reported record net profit of $6.1 billion, and its share price is trading at a near all-time high of 1,450,000 won ($1,341), giving it a market capitalization of about $198 billion.

Samsung's fast rise in smartphones has prompted one of its major customers, Apple, to file lawsuits across the globe last year, alleging that Samsung infringed its patents. In a court case in the U.S., Samsung was dealt a heavy blow in August with a federal jury awarding Apple damages of more than $1 billion. Samsung is fighting the decision and has filed countersuits against Apple.

"The promotion of Jay Y. Lee recognizes his outstanding achievements, including invaluable contributions to the unprecedented growth of Samsung's smartphone and TV businesses, and to the rapid rise in the value of the Samsung brand, despite the challenging business environment," Samsung said in a statement Wednesday.

Mr. Lee graduated from Seoul National University, has an MBA from Japan's Keio University and attended Harvard Business School. He joined Samsung Electronics in 1991, was promoted to chief operating officer in December 2009 when he was 41 years old, and worked under one of Samsung's most successful managers at the time, Geesung Choi, who now heads Samsung Group's corporate strategy office.

"Samsung Electronics has done a good job as a 'fast-follower' in the industry. But as it now has a top position in the market, it needs a new growth engine" to solidify its market position, which would be a key role for Mr. Lee in making him a more visible successor to his father, said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst at IBK Securities.

In 2008, the elder Lee was convicted of breach of trust for the way he retained shares in certain Samsung companies and, in some cases, avoided taxes. He is a lung cancer survivor and has also been embroiled in lawsuits filed by his older brother and sister who want a slice of the family wealth. He resigned from the chairmanship of the Samsung companies in April 2008 and stepped away from daily work, but returned as chairman in 2010. Now 70 years old, he is still the top shareholder in most Samsung companies and, since South Korean tradition holds that family owners don't retire, he is perceived by many South Koreans to still wield enormous influence over them.

The management change is part of Samsung's annual reshuffle of its top leaders, and comes as South Korean conglomerates known as chaebols are under pressure to reform amid concerns about corporate governance.

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